Sir Mortimer Part 14

His cousin wanted him not; John Nevil was in the north and had helpers enough. The slaying of Spaniards was at once good service and good sport. Best take him along for old time's sake. Indeed, he asked no better than to go--" On and on he talked, until, looking up, his speech was cut short by the aspect of the man before him.

If in every generation the house of Ferne, father and son, could wear a dark face when occasion warranted, certainly in this moment that of the latest of his race was dark indeed. "And at the first pinch be betrayed.

Awake, or here, or there, in the torments of Spain or in another world!

Awake and curse me by all your G.o.ds! Speak not to me--I am not hungry for a friend! I have no faith to pledge against your trust! The rabble which await me upon my ship, I have bought them with my gold, and they know me, who I am. For Robin--G.o.d help the boy! He had a fever, and he would not cease his cries until I sware not to part from him. Robin, Robin! Master Arden will take horse! Go, Arden, go! or as G.o.d lives I will strike you where you stand. No,--no hand-touching! Can you not see that you heat the iron past all bearing? A moment since and I could have sworn I saw behind you Henry Sedley! Go, go!"

He sank upon the settle beneath the window, and buried his head in his arms. For a long minute Arden stood with a drawn face, then turning, left the house and left the place, for the knowledge was borne in upon him that here and now friendship could give no aid. When, half an hour later, he arrived at the Blue Swan in the neighboring town and called for _aqua-vitae_, mine host, jolly and round and given over to facetiousness, swore that to look so white and bewitched-like the gentleman must have gathered mandrakes from Ferne church-yard, or have dined with the traitor knight himself.

That same afternoon, when the rays of the sun were lower, Ferne went into his garden and lifted his bared brow, that perchance the air might cool it. It was the quiet hour when the goal of the sun is in view, and the shadows of the fruit trees lay long upon the gra.s.s. There were breaches in the garden walls where they had crumbled into ruin, and through these openings, beyond dark ma.s.ses of all-covering ivy, sight might be had of old trees set in alleys, of primrose-yellowed downs, and of a distant cliff-head where sheep grazed, while far below gleamed a sapphire line of sea. Tender quiet, fair stillness, marked the spot. Day mused as she was going: Evening, drawing near, held her finger to her lips. A tall flower, keeping fairy guard beside three ruinous steps, moved not her slightest bell, but there came one note of a hidden thrush.

Full in the midst of a gra.s.s-plot was set a semi-circular bench of stone. To this Ferne moved, threw himself down, and with a moaning sigh closed his eyes. There had been long days and sleepless nights; there had been, once his brain had ceased to whirl, the growth of a purpose slowly formed, then held like iron; there had been the humble pleading for freedom, the long delay, the hope deferred; then, his pet.i.tion granted, the going forth to mart and highway, the bargaining, amidst curious traffickers, for that rotting ship, for those lives, as worthless as his own, which yet must have their price. This going forth was very bad; like hot lead within the gaping wound, like searing sunshine upon the naked eye. And now, to-day, not an hour since, Arden!

to mock, to goad, to torture--

Slowly, slowly, the sun went down the west, and the peace of the garden deepened. Very stealthily the quiet stole upon him; softly, silently, with spirit touch, it brought him healing simples. Utterly weary as he was, the balm of the hour at last flowed over him, faintly soothing, faintly caressing. He opened his eyes, and breathing deeply, looked about him with a saner vision than he had used of late.

The lily by the broken stair slept on, but the thrush sang once again.

The bell-like note died into the charmed stillness, and all things were as they had been. Thirty paces away, stark against the evening sky, rose the western wall of Ferne House, and it was s.h.a.ggy with ivy that was rooted like a tree, wide-branched, populous with birds' nests, and high, high against the blue a thing of tenderest sprays and palest leaves. The long ridge of them kept the late sunshine, and so far was it lifted above the earth, so still in that dreamy hour, so touched with pale gold, so distant and so delicate against high heaven, that it caught and held eye and soul of the man for whom Fate had borrowed Ixion's wheel.

He gazed until the poet in him sighed with pure pleasure; then came forgetfulness; then, presently, he looked into his heart and began to make a little song, amorous, quaint, and honey-sweet, just such a song as in that full dawn of poesy Englishmen struck from the lyre and thought naught of it. His lips did not move; had he spoken, at the sound of his own voice the charm had cracked, the little lyric had shrunk away before tragedy that was yet as fierce as it was profound, that had as yet few other notes than those of primal pain.

With the final cadence, the last sugared word, the ivy sprays somewhat darkened against the eastern sky. His fancy being yet aloft, he turned that he might behold the light upon the downs, and then he saw Damaris Sedley where she stood upon the lowest of the ruined steps, stiller than the flower beside her, and with something rich and strange in her bearing and her dress. Cloth of silver sheathed her body, while the flowing sleeves that half revealed, half hid her white and rounded arms were of silver tissue over watchet blue, and of watchet was the mantle which she had let fall upon the step beside her. A net of wire of gold crossing her hair that was but half confined, held high above her forehead a golden star. In one hand she bore a silvered spear well tipped with gold, the other she pressed above her heart. Her face was pale and grave, her scarlet lip between her teeth, her dark eyes intent upon the man before her.

Ferne sprang to his feet and started forward, very white, his arm outstretched and trembling, crying to her if she were spirit merely. She shook her head, regarding him gravely, her hand yet upon her heart. "I attend the Queen upon her progress," she said. "This day at the Earl's there is a great masque of Dian and her huntresses, satyrs, fauns, all manner of sylvan folk. At last I might steal aside unmissed.... By the favor of a friend I rode here through the quiet lanes, for I wished to see you face to face, to speak to you--to you who gave me no answer when I wrote, and wrote again!... I am weary with the joys of this day. May I rest upon yonder seat?"

He moved backward before her, slowly, across the gra.s.s-plot to the bench of stone, and she followed him. Their gaze met the while. There was no wonder in his look, no consciousness of self in hers. In the s.p.a.ces beyond life their souls might meet thus; each drawing by the veil, each recognizing the other for what it was. They took their seat upon the wide stone bench, with the primroses at their feet, and above them the empurpling arch of the sky. Throughout the past months, when he dreamed of her, when he thought of her, he bowed himself before her, he raised not his eyes to hers. But now their looks met, and his countenance of a haggard and ravaged beauty did not change before her still regard. The floating silver gauze of her open sleeve lying upon the stone between them he lightly, with no pressure that she might notice, let rest his hand upon it. In the act of doing this he wondered at himself, but then he thought, "I am on my way to death...."

She was the first to speak.

"Seven months have gone since that day at Whitehall."

"Ay," he answered, "seven months."

She went on: "I have learned not to reckon life that way. Since that day at Whitehall life has lasted a very long time."

Again he echoed--"A very long time." Then, after a pause: "I have made for you a long, long life. If to have done so is to your irreparable loss, then this, also, is to be forgiven.... Long life! now in the watches of one night I live to be an old man! For you may forgetfulness come at last!"

She turned slightly, looking at him from beneath the gold star. "Wish me no such happy wishes! Let me not think that such wishes dwell in your heart. Since that day at Whitehall I have written to you--written twice.

Why did you never answer?"

He looked down upon his clasped hands. "What was there to be said? I thought, 'I have sorely wounded her whom I love, and with my own words I have seared that wound as with white heat of iron. Now G.o.d keep me man enough to say no farther word!'"

"I was benumbed that day," she said; "I was frozen. My brother's face came between us.... Oh, my brother!... Since that day I have seen Sir John Nevil--"

"Then a just man told you my story justly," he began, but she interrupted him, her breath coming faster.

"I have also made other inquiry; on my knees, on my face, in the dead of the night when I knew that thou, too, waked, I have asked of G.o.d, and of our Lord the Christ who suffered.... I know not if they heard me, there be so many that clamor in their ears...." With a quick movement she arose from the stone seat and began to pace the gra.s.s-plot, her hands clasped behind her head, the gold star yet bright in the late, late sunshine. "I would they had answered me distinctly. Perhaps they did....

But be that as it may be I will follow my own heart, I will go my own way--"

He arose and began to walk with her. "And thy heart led thee this way?"

he asked in a whisper.

She flashed upon him a look so bright that it was as if high noon had returned to the garden. "Pluck me yonder lily," she said. "It is the first I have smelled this year."

He brought it to her, trembling. "Presently it will close," he said, "never to open again."

"That also is among the things we know not," she answered. "Think you not there is one who revives the souls of men?"

"Ay, I believe it," he answered. They paced again the green to its flowery margin.

"Give me yon spray of love-lies-bleeding," she said; then as it rested against the lily in her hand, "Wounds may be cured," she said. "I have heard talk here, there, at the court even, else, beshrew me, if I had come this way to-day! I know that thou goest forth--" Her voice broke and the gold star shook with the trembling of her frame. "I know that thou mayst never, never, never return. I will pray for thy soul's welfare.... See! there is a heartsease at my feet."

He knelt, but touched not the floweret, instead caught at the long folds of her silver gown and held her where she stood. "For my soul's welfare, thou balm from heaven!" he cried. "For only my soul's welfare?"

"No, no," she answered. "For the welfare of all of thee, soul and body--soul and body!" She bent over him, and there fell from her eyes a bright rain of tears, quickly come, quickly checked. "Ah, a contrary world of queens and guardians!" she cried. "Oh, my G.o.d! if thou mightst only make me thy wife before thou goest!"

He arose and drew her into his arms. "The story is true," he whispered, to which she answered:

"I care not! Sayest thou, 'A thing was done.' Say I, '_Thou_ didst it!'

and high above the deed I love thee!"

Suddenly she fell into a storm of weeping, then broke from him, and somewhat blindly sought the garden seat, sank down upon it, and buried her face in her arms. He kneeled beside her, and presently she was crouching against his breast, that rose and fell with his answering emotion. She put up her hand and touched the deep lines of past suffering in the face above her.

"I know that thou must go," she said. "I would not have thee stay. But, Mortimer, if it were possible ... He forgave you long, long ago, for he loved you above all men. I, his sister, answer for him. Ah, G.o.d wot!

brother and sister we have loved you well.... If I could keep tryst, after all, if thou couldst make me thy wife before thou goest--or if kindred and the Queen be too powerful, I could escape, could follow thee as thy page, trusting thy honor ... Ah, look not so upon me! Ah, to be a woman and do one's own wooing! Ah, think what thou wilt of me, only know that I love thee to the uttermost!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'AH, LOOK NOT SO UPON ME!'"]

Ferne left her side, and moving to the garden wall, looked out over the far-away downs to the far-away sea--the sea that, for weary months had called and-thundered in his ears. Now he saw it all halcyon, stretching fair and mute to the boundless west, the sinking sun, the lovers' star. They two--could they two, lying with closed eyes, but drift out over bar, floating away through golds and purples towards the kiss of heaven and sea--flotsam of this earth, jetsam of age-distant sh.o.r.es, each to the other paradise and all in all! How profound the stillness--how deep the fragrance of the lily--what indifference, what quiet as of scorn did the Maker of man, having placed his creature in the lists, turn aside to other spectacles!... Should man be more careful than his G.o.d? Right! Wrong!--to die at last and find them indeed words of a length and the prize of sore striving a fool's bauble:--to die and miss the rose and wine cup!--to die and find not the struggle and the star!--to loose the glorious bird in the hand and beyond the portals to feel no fanning of a vaster wing! What use--what use--to be at once the fleeing Adam and the dark archangel at Eden's gates?

He turned to behold the woman whom now, with no trace of the fancifulness, the idealism of his time, he loved with all depth, pa.s.sion, actuality; he set wrist to teeth and bit the flesh until blood started; he moved towards her where she sat with her hands clasped above her knee, her head thrown back, watching his coming with those deep eyes of hers. He reached her side; she rose to meet him, and the two stood embraced in the flattering sunshine, the odor of the lilies, the pale glory of the failing day.

"My dear love, it is not possible," he said. "Flower of women! didst dream that I would leave thee here blasted by my name, or that I would carry thee where I must go? Star of my earth, to-day we say a clean farewell!"

"Then G.o.d be with thee," she said, brokenly.

"And with thee!" he answered. Hand in hand they moved to the broken wall, and leaning upon it, looked out to that far line of sea. Her under-sleeve of silver gauze fell away from her arm.

"How white is thy arm!" he breathed. "How branched with tender blue!"

"Wilt kiss it?" she answered, "so I shall grow to love myself."

"Thou art the fairest thing the sun shines on," he said. "Thy lips are like flowers I have never seen in the West."

"Gather the flowers," she said, and raised her face to his. "The garden is kept for thee."

The sun began to decline, the earth to darken, swallows circled past.

"It grows late," she said, "late, late! When goest thou?"

"Within the week."

"By then her Grace will have whirled me leagues away.... I would I were a queen. If thou goest to death--oh G.o.d! we'll not speak of that!--Give me that chain of thine."